Subliminal memes

From: anon1fd0@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Name withheld by request)
Subject: Subliminal Memes.
Date: 2 Jul 1994 13:56:09 -0600
Hello,
First of all, I'm really glad that this groups exists! Thanks
to whomever created it. The book MetaMagical Themas mentions memetic
theory, and this looks like an accurate description of what happens--almost
like a form of cognitive darwinism.
Some questions, to any good person who might know how to answer them:
1. Are there fluctuating and pulsating attractors in the mind
which grow and shrink according to stress, fatigue, happiness,
and melancholy? Or fear? For the sake of argument, let us
look at the biasing level of the medium of the mind in
broad daylight, at noon, walking through a wooded glade.
Later on, in the early evening, this mind (me) goes to see
a horror movie--I am driving home late that night, and
unfortunately my car breaks down, so I find myself walking
through the same glade _at night_, and it is very menacing--
spooky shadows could conceal a whole battalion of evil
spirits, or some hulking monstrosity could be lurking and
sulking back behind a tree, waiting to pounce.
Why do I get these spooky feelings?
or,
Have you ever read a ghost story at night,
and been very scared, yet the next morning you
looked at the same book and said, "how could I
have been so silly! That's not scary at all."C
Is this because biases are lowered in the unknown of the dark, bias
which allow memes to quickly spread, like bacteria in milk that's been
left out of the refrigerator?
2. Is there a connection between population threshold levels
in a laser, and memetic population threshold levels? w
By this, I mean, could an outside influence 'pump' the
mind in such a way as to raise the memetic population,
said memes later releasing their combined vector strengths
in some 'snap', a violent action?
Example: O.J. Simpson: probably tormented himself by
imagining his former wife having sex with another man--
the memes were these flitting memories, dancing around
like moths in his head, until he could take it no more
and allowed the memes to fully commandier his faculties.
After the murder, he experienced a 'silence of the memes.'
3. Has anyone seen the movie, _The Bribe_? It is a story about
a man trying to bribe someone, they keep telling him no,
but he keeps come back to the front door, in the pouring
rain even, making little 'suggestions', subtle parthean
shots--or are they more? Are they really subliminal
thought viruses, designed to 'hook in' to any weaknesses,
like feelings of guilt, and then, via the snowball accretion
affect, establish vicious cycle formations which lock the
host into an intractable dilemma of following meme orders
or feeling intense guilt?
4. Is there a virus which can be transmitted from computer to
human brain or vice versa? I can think of a few, but on
a fundemental level? (i.e., machine code even)? Not sure.
5. One beautiful thought virus that I have seen (computer to
human even) has been the chain letter with all kinds of
calumniations, guilt trips, and curses for those who
read it, and don't pass it on. For example, one I read
recently told of a man's wife (I think) who _died_ because
she scoffed at the instructions in the letter! D
Does anyone have an example of one of these internet chain
letters? As memes, they have an incredibly high level of
fitness. If you even pause to think for a second about one
of these letters, the memes start hooking like crazy--please
be careful.
6. Urban legend propagation: How do memes work with urban
legends?
7. Is there a meme FAQ?
8. _CandyMan_ , the movie: "if you say CandyMan 5 times in
a mirror, at night, alone, the CandyMan will come for
you through the mirror." Is this a fear meme?
Why don't you try 8, as an experiment?
Thanks in advance for any feedback you may have.
Yours,
Jon.

The topic raised by Jon (anon1fd0@nyx10.cs.du.edu) may be one
of the most essential aspects of memetics.
I don't have much to say about the specific examples of
subliminal memes Jon comes up with, but I do have some general
remarks we can discuss.
Hofstadter c.s. emphasize the *cognitive* processing of 'viral
sentences', that 'program' people to do things -- as if their
brains act like (ever obedient) computers. In fact if a meme
is to manipulate human behavior, it should interfere at an
*emotional* level.
What I mean to say is that most memes are not replicating
cognitive (verbal) structures with emotional impact, but memes
are replicating emotional (non-verbal) structures, sometimes
supported by cognitive co-memes.
This implies that memes operate at the 'limbic system' level
of our brains rather than at a cortical level. At this place
our non-verbal social interactions are processed, social
emotions arise, associative memories are stored.
If you want to study memes, you should pay attention to habits
of non-verbal communication, emotional impact on individuals
of social feedback to visible bahavior patterns, and hidden
associations in every-day trivial conversation.
Those are the processes carrying the most powerful memes.
What memetical motivations make people 'choose' their friends,
or break with others? Isn't *love* just a matter of selfish
memes? What happens to people that get negative social
feedback all the time because of some dirty memetic mechanism?
Can memes influence children using strong emotions in such a
way that they will promote the same meme after they've grown
up? Do mental illnesses serve a meme strategy?
Clearly, this covers a whole area of social, developmental and
clinical psychology, in none of which I have any skill.
What memetics could do is point out some general mechanisms
(meme strategies) underlying these important questions.
Sweet dreams,
Marc

From: nv91-asa@oder.nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Subject: Re: Subliminal Memes.
Date: 6 Jul 94 13:29:58
I would say memes can exist on several levels. Some memes are
completely intelectual, like certain programming languages or
mathematical tricks. These may become connected to emotional
structures in idividuals and passed on, but in their original
form they are rather independent of non-verbal structures.
Some memes are purely non-verbal, like many social customs
(shaking hands, greeting behavior). They can be transmitted
as well, especially by learning from friends and relatives
during upbringing.
However, many memes are linked to both levels. Greeting phrases
are both verbal (most have at least some verbal meaning) and
non-verbal (the greeting meme). The emotional aspect, closely
linked to the limbic system is a powerful driving force which
influences the verbal aspect. As a rule, emotions outweigh
reason in most cases, especially if there are no apparent
benefits except emotional gratification.
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
nv91-asa@hemul.nada.kth.se
GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y

Anders Sandberg (nv91-asa@oder.nada.kth.se) writes:
"" I would say memes can exist on several levels. Some memes are
"" completely intellectual, like certain programming languages or
"" mathematical tricks. These may become connected to emotional
"" structures in individuals and passed on, but in their original
"" form they are rather independent of non-verbal structures.
I doubt that. Designers of programming languages make choices
that are inspired upon certain ideas on the nature of the
machines they are programming. Never forget that the first
computers (Turing) were designed after a model of the human mind.
This means that programming languages are members of the meme
complex underlying this model: functionalism.
Functionalism in its turn goes back to very old meme complexes,
probably having lots of m'emotional connections.
Note that as our (functionalist) model of the mind evolves,
programming languages are changing too: development of object-
oriented languages etc.
For mathematical tricks to become popular, they must be
'intuitive', help mathematicians understand what they are doing
at a sub-symbolic level. Subliminally active memes can (and will)
interfere at this point.
In both cases the connection to emotional structures is present
from the very beginning.
I'm not saying that a meme couldn't ever be completely
intellectual/verbal. However, such a meme will swiftly loose
competition with memes active at the same domain, that DO have
m'emotional connections.
--Marc

From: nv91-asa@oder.nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Subject: Re: Subliminal Memes.
Date: 12 Jul 94 13:03:36
Marc wrote:
>Anders Sandberg (nv91-asa@oder.nada.kth.se) writes:
>
>"" I would say memes can exist on several levels. Some memes are
>"" completely intellectual, like certain programming languages or
>"" mathematical tricks. These may become connected to emotional
>"" structures in individuals and passed on, but in their original
>"" form they are rather independent of non-verbal structures.
>
>I doubt that. Designers of programming languages make choices
>that are inspired upon certain ideas on the nature of the
>machines they are programming. Never forget that the first
>computers (Turing) were designed after a model of the human mind.
>This means that programming languages are members of the meme
>complex underlying this model: functionalism.
>Functionalism in its turn goes back to very old meme complexes,
>probably having lots of emotional connections.
I don't think a meme can be completely intellectual and without
emotional connotations due to the structure of the human mind.
We are not able to separate verbal, non-verbal, intellectual
and emotional structures completely. The best we can do is make
them relatively separate, and thus possible to transfer to other
humans without interference from other aspects of their minds.
For example, a programming language itself isn't very strongly
linked to the emotional side of most people. This aids in their
spread, since if they had strong emotional connotations this
would help and hinder them depending on the emotional memes
of the recipients. Being rather free from emotional content,
they avoid competition from emotional memes and can concentrate
on competition with other verbal/intellectual memes of the same
type (other languages). However, most programmers soon develop
emotional connotations to their favorite (and hated) languages,
which aid the language meme in persisting in the minds of them.
A competition from the outside has to overcome both the
intellectual defenses and the strong emotional defenses (just
look at the religious wars on the net).
>For mathematical tricks to become popular, they must be
>'intuitive', help mathematicians understand what they are doing
>at a sub-symbolic level. Subliminally active memes can (and will)
>interfere at this point.
Or the meme may be very useful, by giving powerful results but
not requiring any true understanding (after all, how many
people know why pen-and-paper multiplication gives the right
answer?).
>In both cases the connection to emotional structures is present
>from the very beginning.
>I'm not saying that a meme couldn't ever be completely
>intellectual/verbal. However, such a meme will swiftly loose
>competition with memes active at the same domain, that DO have
>m'emotional connections.
Yes, emotions are powerful allies for intellectual memes. However,
since emotion-memes generally are stronger and more efficient
they also tend to quickly create powerful defenses which are hard
and expensive to penetrate. And the alliances/ecological niches
are often very individual from person to person, making it hard
to create general memes which will infect many persons.
Purely intellectual memes exploit this by using the intellect as
a trapdoor into the emotional fortress. They have two forms. One
form is the abstract, purely intellectual from (a mathematical
theorem, a description of a computer language). This can spread
without much interference from the emotional memes, influences
mainly by utility and competition from similar memes. But when
they infect a mind, they start to form links to emotions, thus
entrenching themselves against similar memes. We all have our
favorite mathematical tricks and languages, and tend to avoid
learning new ones because we are comfortable with them. This is
the second form, which has emotional content. It can also spread,
but is dependent on the emotional memes of the receiver to
infect his or her mind. They can also change back to the abstract
form and thus spread without this competition.
In the same way many emotional memes use intellectual forms to
spread and bypass emotional defenses.
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
nv91-asa@hemul.nada.kth.se
GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y

From: anon1fd0@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Name withheld by request)
Subject: Memes for Nationalism.
Date: 14 Jul 1994 05:08:10 -0600
Thanks for your earlier reply, Marc.
Question: Are there memes for nationalism?
Has anyone seen the movie, _The Legend of Billie Jean_?
It was recently shown locally; one interesting aspect was
how it modeled the sculpting and grooming of a political
candidate--but most interestingly was the emotionally charged
memetic statement, "Fair is Fair." (A=A) This powerful meme
has three things going for it:
1. Compact: small, easy to remember, lends itself well
to economy of reference; thus more easily transmittable.
2. Irrefutable: It's hard to argue with A=A.
3. Piggybacks on popular cultural myth of fairness;
reinforces this myth, thus is reinforced in turn
symbiotically.
Thanks in advance for any comments on this;
the memes and I thank you. :)
Yours,
Jon.